Cuts To Fund School Raises Proposed

September 16, 1987|By Casey Banas, Education writer.

The Chicago Board of Education can give teachers and other school employees a 4 percent salary increase and restore three unpaid days off by cutting $32.9 million from its budget without eliminating educational programs, according to the top official of a fiscal watchdog group.

The proposal outlined Monday by G. Alfred Hess Jr., executive director of the Chicago Panel on Public School Policy and Finance, provides a framework for the school board and the Chicago Teachers Union to end their negotiating stalemate and begin serious bargaining, school observers say.

Bargaining will resume Wednesday for the first time since last weekend, said Jacqueline Vaughn, president of the teachers` union, Tuesday morning. Leaders of the teachers` union are to meet at 3 p.m. Wednesday with board members, Vaughn said at a rally of 3,000 strikers at the Plumbers Chicago Journeymen Local Union 130 Hall, 1340 W. Washington St.

Vaughn, who said she would have to wait to see whether renewed negotiations constituted a ``breakthrough,`` said the federal mediator called to invite her back to the table Wednesday as she drove to the rally.

``I will take the message that you want smaller class sizes and a decent salary so we can pay our electric bills for July and August,`` said Vaughn, who added that a multiyear contract would also be demanded.

Negotiations for contracts with the Chicago Teachers Union and 20 other employee unions were stalled as the strike entered its sixth day Tuesday. Classes were canceled for the fifth day.

Hess sent his proposal Friday to school board members and administrators. Barbara Peck, the board`s chief financial officer, said Monday, ``We`re still analyzing it.``

Mattie Hopkins, a school board member, said the plan ``needs a thorough review`` to determine its feasibility as an avenue to free funds for a raise. Hess reviewed the proposal Monday at a meeting of an ad hoc group of 53 civic and community organizations, the Coalition to Keep Our Schools Open, which is looking a way to end the strike that has idled 430,000 students in 594 schools.

The teachers` union wants a two-year-contract with a 10 percent pay increase the first year and 5 percent the second as its opening bargaining position. The board, saying there are no funds for a raise, wants teachers and other school employees to take a 1.7 percent salary cut by giving them three unpaid days off.

Hess called for ``creative packaging`` to put together an economic offer that the teachers` union would accept-one that includes a pay raise and a restoration of three days to the school year, which the board wants to cut to save money. He said that teachers probably would not accept a raise of 2 percent or less.

But Hess emphasized that if a 4 percent raise were offered, to be effective at midyear, the beginning of the second semester in February, teachers might find it acceptable when coupled with restoration of the three days. He said the package also could include low-cost educational reform pilot programs urged by Vaughn.

If a 4 percent raise is effective at midyear, the cost in the current school year would be $20 million. Restoring the three days would cost $13.5 million. Thus the package would cost $33.5 million, plus an additional few thousands, depending on the final version of educational reform proposals, such as peer evaluation and teacher internships.

To finance his package, Hess proposed reallocating the budget this way:

The cuts add up to $32.9 million, leaving the board to find only $600,000 out of a $1.88 billion budget to finance the raise and restore the three unpaid days. Hess told the coalition that the proposal is just one way to consider how to finance a strike settlement, emphasizing that board members perhaps could find another set of cuts.

One shortcoming of Hess` proposal for a 4 percent pay raise at midyear is that the maneuver would add $20 million to the board`s projected $99 million deficit a year from now. The cost in the 1987-88 budget would be $20 million, because it would be effective only for half the year, but it would cost more than $40 million for a full year in 1988-89.